OpenAI’s adult mode will reportedly be smutty, not pornographic

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The feature was delayed, reportedly due to internal concerns surrounding moderation and safeguarding children.

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OpenAI’s delayed “adult mode” for ChatGPT is expected to support saucy text conversations at launch, but not the chatbot’s ability to generate images, voice, or video.

Speaking toThe Wall Street Journal, an unnamed OpenAI spokesperson described content that will be provided by the upcoming feature as smut rather than pornography, allowing ChatGPT users to generate textual chats with adult themes.

The feature was initially announced in October, withOpenAI CEO Sam Altmanclaiming that the company hadmanaged to mitigateenough of the “serious mental health issues“ with its AI model to relax safety restrictions and introduce “erotica for verified adults.” ChatGPT’s adult mode was expected to launchsometime this quarter, but OpenAI said earlier this month that it wasdelaying the rolloutto focus on higher-priority tasks.

A new release timeline has yet to be announced.

The delay was also due to internal concerns and technical challenges around safeguards for the feature, according toThe Wall Street Journal’s reporting.

A council of advisers selected by OpenAI warned the company in January that ChatGPT’s adult mode may be accessible to children and foster unhealthy emotional dependence on the chatbot, with one unnamed council member saying OpenAI risked creating a “sexy suicide coach.”
Content moderation issues have also contributed to the delays.

Sources familiar with the matter toldThe Journalthat OpenAI is struggling to lift ChatGPT’s restrictions on NSFW content while keeping more harmful scenarios off limits, such as those depicting nonconsensual behavior or child sexual abuse.

The age-prediction system that OpenAI developed to keep children away from erotica was also, at one point, misclassifying minors as adults about 12 percent of the time.

Given ChatGPT attracts around 100 million users under 18 each week, that error rate could allow millions of minors into sexualized conversations with the chatbot.

OpenAI’s age prediction algorithms show similar performance to the rest of the industry, an unnamed spokesperson toldThe Journal, but “will never be completely foolproof.”
Sticking to text-based conversations may make it easier for the ChatGPT-maker to navigate around rules like the UK’s Online Safety Act, which requires online platforms to enforce age verification for pornographic images, but not written erotica.

It also contrasts with more visual NSFW experiences from rival AI providers, such asGrok’s “spicy” companions, with xAI’s Elon Musk announcing last week that Grok’s image and video generator is allowed to spit out anything that’s “allowed in an R-rated movie.”
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